Holy Land Analogy
[Please consider sending an e-mail to President Bush and Secretary Powell to demonstrate that we're not all completely ignorant of the region's history.]
I request that you cut off all military aid to Israel, sending the strongest possible signal that strafing refugee communities with U.S.-supplied F-16s is not acceptable—that the de facto occupation of the Palestinian areas must end.
To make my rationale understandable, I offer the following:
Suppose that the initial dispossession of Native Americans on this continent were little more than 50 years old. Suppose the dispossessed constituted one tribe, who held the land with full cognizance of their national sovereignty. Suppose that we consigned the survivors of war waged on these people to reservations, without any treaties in which they agreed to accept this dispensation. Suppose that hostilities had never ceased.
In this constant state of struggle, rooted in hardly historical injustice, would we term this people “terrorist” if some—so full of despair, unable to fight on anything like equal terms—committed suicide in order to kill and hurt members of the occupying power? We might, because history is written by the conqueror not the vanquished, but would it have any semblance of justice?
Unless the United States intends to wage war on all adherents of Islam, our government’s failure to distinguish between the Trade Center terrorists and those Palestinian refugees who sacrifice their lives to exact revenge on their oppressors—all that is left for them—is a tragic mistake.
Of course for political reasons the U.S. has never really exercised its true leverage with Israeli leaders to promote peace. Secretary Powell’s insistence that Chairman Arafat arrest people engaged in suicide missions for the peace process to go forward would make him irrelevant for the Palestinian people—more effectively than Prime Minister Sharon has done. There is no way he can do this in the current reality without ceasing to lead them—without becoming only the Israeli jailor.
If the U.S. cannot act as a fair broker between the parties, because of our close ties to Israel and the strong, unquestioning political constituency and lobby that exists here for it, we should strengthen the United Nations to enforce its many more equitable resolutions for the region. The tragedy in this land sacred to so many religions is a fire raging; we need a consistently just policy, rather than the current flip-flop, to reduce so much incendiary fuel.
posted by Paul at 9:34 AM
